“I was,” I said. “For eight years.”
“Do you mind me asking why you left?”
Okay, I thought, so she doesn’t know everything.
“I got shot,” I said. “Is this important information for this case?”
“I’m just curious. I apologize.”
“No apology necessary.”
“Very well, then. So can you tell me what happened? I understand you were out in Houghton, interviewing people about his son’s suicide?”
“Not really interviewing. Nothing that official. He just asked me to find out what I could.”
“And what did you learn out there?”
I hesitated. “According to Charlie’s friends, he and his father got into an argument about Charlie switching his major from criminal justice to forestry. Nothing his father had said to me made me believe it was such a big problem between them-nothing more than ordinary father-son stuff-but apparently it was. But I wasn’t going to come back and tell him that.”
“Why not? Isn’t that what he asked you to find out?”
“I don’t think it would have done anybody any good. Not that it makes any difference now.”
“You didn’t get the chance to speak to him before you found him today? You didn’t call him?”
“I tried to, but he wasn’t answering his cell phone.”
“I noticed the cell service isn’t very good up here.”
“Some days it works better than others, depending on where you are. I did get through to his voice mail.”
“Okay,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “That’s all in line with what I’ve heard so far. Apparently, you called him just after noon today. You were in Marquette.”
“How do you know that?”
“The signal from your cell phone went through the tower there. You called him again around two o’clock, just outside Sault Ste. Marie.”
“You guys work fast,” I said. “So I’m sure you know the approximate time of death, too.”
“Right around noon. So obviously you’re eliminated as a suspect.”
“That’s not why I was asking. I just want to know when it happened.”
“Once a cop, always a cop,” she said. “So yes, the murder occurred right around the first time you called him. It’s possible the killer was still in the room when Mr. Razniewski’s cell phone rang.”
I thought about that one for a moment. I imagined Raz on the floor, already bleeding, his phone ringing and being unable to answer it. One of the last things he heard before he died.
“So if you’ll just go through the entire thing one more time…” She pulled out a small black recording device of some kind, no bigger than a matchbook. She spoke into it, said her name and the time. Then as she looked around the room she said she was at the police station in Sault Ste. Marie with Mr. Alex McKnight of Paradise, Michigan. She gave me a quick smile and a nod of her head and then it was my turn to speak. I went over the last forty-eight hours, beginning with Chief Maven’s visit to the Glasgow Inn. His request for my help. Meeting Charles Razniewski Sr. and learning more about his son’s suicide. Driving out to Houghton, the detour to Misery Bay, my conversation with the undersheriff, then Charlie’s friends. Coming back the next day. Finding Raz dead on Chief Maven’s floor.
She listened without interrupting. She didn’t ask any questions until I was done.
“So just focus for a minute on what actually happened here in Sault Ste. Marie, before and after your trip.”
“How do you mean? I only met him briefly before I went out there, and then when I got back, obviously it was only-”
“I understand, but was there anything else that might have happened here that might look out of place now? Something you might not have even noticed at the time?”
I tried to follow her thought, but I wasn’t coming up with anything at all.
“Any suspicious strangers hanging around town?” she said. “Or did Mr. Razniewski mention anything, perhaps? Was he uneasy? Did he feel like he was being watched? Anything like that?”
“No. I mean, he was preoccupied with his son when I talked to him. It was just that one conversation.”
“One more time, if you can. Please go back over that whole time frame. I know that your trip is the thing that stands out in your mind, but just focus on what might have been going on here in this immediate area. Anything that might have seemed unusual or out of place here. No matter how small. Please think about it carefully.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything else.”
“Okay,” she said, turning her little machine off. “I appreciate you taking so much time here, Mr. McKnight. You realize, I hope, that we had to follow a certain protocol. We had to keep you separated before the interview, even with you being an ex-cop and Chief Maven, of course, still being on the job up here. I hope we didn’t inconvenience you too much.”
“It’s okay. Really.”
“I think we’ve probably kept you and your friend apart for long enough, wouldn’t you say? Shall we bring him in here?”
“My friend? Are you referring to-”
“Chief Maven, yes. My partner was talking to him in his office. If they’re done, I think we can wrap this up together.”
She excused herself and went down the hall. About a minute later, she came back, followed by Chief Maven and a man in a dark blue suit much like hers. It might have even been the exact same fabric, cut from the same bolt. He was young and slick-looking, with a narrow face and sharp eyes. As he entered the room he seemed to be distracted by his cell phone.
“Any day now,” he said to the phone. “Is there any service up here?”
“This is my partner,” Agent Long said to me. “Agent Fleury.”
He put down his phone just long enough to shake my hand.
“Mr. McKnight,” he said. “Sorry this wasn’t a more pleasant occasion.”
Chief Maven sat down next to me. He hadn’t said a word yet and it didn’t look like he was planning on speaking anytime soon. He looked even worse than before-at least twenty years older now, his face drained of color. He kept staring down at the table with half-closed eyes.
“We’ve been letting you guys do all the talking,” Agent Fleury said, “so I figure maybe it’s our turn.”
He looked over at his partner until she nodded back to him. Then he continued.
“As you know, Mr. Razniewski was a U.S. marshal. I assume you know what that job entails?”
“In general,” I said. “I believe so.”
Maven didn’t look up from the table.
“Mr. Razniewski probably didn’t get into specifics, but I can tell you that in the past two years he was involved in some very high-profile cases. He wasn’t just transporting detainees. He was closely involved in the actual capture of fugitives. Were you aware that U.S. marshals actually arrest more fugitives than all the other federal branches combined?”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
Still nothing from Maven.
“Raz brought down some pretty heavy hitters,” the agent said.
Maven finally raised his eyes at that.
“I hope you don’t mind me calling him Raz,” he said. “I know that was his nickname. We didn’t work together, but I’d certainly heard all about him. I mean, even before today.”
Maven kept looking at him, but stayed silent.
“In the past six months especially,” Agent Long said, “Mr. Razniewski was personally involved in a major case that we feel might be connected to this murder.”
“So it had nothing to do with his son’s suicide,” I said. It was starting to make more sense now-why Agent Long had been so focused on anything that anybody might have noticed here in town, and not so much on my trip to Houghton at all. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“I can’t imagine any direct connection, no. I mean, how could it?”
“It just seems strange that it would happen three months later.”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Agent Fleury said. “There might not be a direct connection, but it did perhaps create an opportunity for somebody to get to him.”